


Ananda Thomas and the Midnight Ride

by teaberryblue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Future, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 17:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaberryblue/pseuds/teaberryblue





	Ananda Thomas and the Midnight Ride

Summer in Boston was slick and hot: the humidity rose out of Massachusetts Bay and clung to hair and skin and clothing until everything felt as if the city were cloaked in lukewarm soup.   
  
Ananda Thomas scratched at a mosquito bite on her forearm, trying to scratch it just enough to stop the itch without opening it up with her fingernails. She wished she could use her wand on it, but her parents had patently refused to let her take it out of the house.  
  
It had been hard enough to convince them to let her go out alone.  
  
“I’m twelve,” Ananda had pointed out. “I’m just going to see a movie at the Common and I’ll be back. Merlin, the summer’s almost over.”   
  
“Nandi, promise me you are not going to sneak into an R-rated movie again with your friends,” said her mother.   
  
Ananda had rolled her eyes at that. “Of course not,” she answered, in spite of the fact that that was exactly what they were planning to do. “Ugh. Don’t you trust me?”  
  
“Of course we trust you,” said her father. “We trust you to say you’re going to a Pixar movie when you’re really seeing whatever Leonardo DiCaprio is in.”  
  
But her father had winked at her, and told her that as long as she was back in the house by nine, she could take the T all by herself, and had given her money for a movie and everything.   
  
And then had taken her wand. Because of the unfortunate incident at the last movie.  
  
So she was waiting patiently for the Green Line, covered in sweat, and hoping that she would get onto a car with good air conditioning...and maybe a seat.   
  
The trolley clanged as it pulled up to her stop. She found her fare and hopped on. Just her luck: standing room only. She elbowed her way to a bar and held on.   
  
There was a cute boy sitting across from her; she grinned at him and twisted a finger around one of her braids, but he seemed too engrossed in bobbing his head along with whatever he was listening to on his iPod, and her grin turned into a scowl for a moment before she decided to ignore him.  
  
Two stops later, a lady got up, and Ananda scooted into her seat.  
  
She tapped her fingers against her knee, wishing she’d remembered to bring a book. Her parents had promised her a mobile phone for her thirteenth birthday, but she still had a year to go. It was so unfair! Half of her friends had phones, and Cami even had her own iPad. Her father said it was fair, on account of the fact that none of her friends had wands, but Ananda thought that barely counted, since all her friends from her old school were Muggles, and most of her friends from Salem Institute didn’t seem to know what iPads were.   
  
The cute boy had a mobile phone. It was ringing. He answered it as he got up to hop off the train.  
  
A man got on when the cute boy got off. He was a white man, older, maybe sixty or so. He sat down in the seat the cute boy had vacated.   
  
And he stared at Ananda.  
  
Ananda tried to look away. She wished she’d had something to focus on, a book, or a phone. But she didn’t have anything, and all she could do was read the ads on the subway walls. There was one for language lessons, and one with some local politician promoting some public service.   
  
But the old man kept staring at her, and she couldn’t help but look back. His eyes were blue, piercing blue, and his clothes were so funny. He was wearing a t-shirt tucked in to his orange corduroy pants, with a bow tie and a pair of earmuffs. In the summer. Earmuffs.   
  
Ananda told herself he couldn’t really be staring at her. Maybe he was looking at whatever ad was behind her head. Maybe he was looking at her braids. Or trying to figure out whether she was black or Indian.   
  
After a couple of minutes, he was still staring, and sh was starting to get creeped out. When the train reached the Prudential Center, she got up, got out, and slipped onto the car following hers.  
  
Ananda groaned as she saw that the new car was jam-packed. No seats in sight. She made her way over to the very front of the car, where there was at least space to lean against the wall.  
  
And then she froze. Because the old man was still watching her, through the window of the other car. She squeezed back through the crowd of people filling the space between the seats.  
  
“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” snapped a woman in a beige pantsuit.   
“Sorry,” Ananda muttered, veering back. She accidentally stepped on the toes of a man in basketball shorts standing behind he. “Agh! Sorry, sorry,” she apologized hastily.  
  
“Ugh,” said the woman in the pantsuit, flicking her red lacquered nails in the air dismissively. “Your parents should be teaching you manners.”   
  
Ananda decided she didn’t need to get into a fight with this lady about the fact that there was a creeper following her, so she shrugged and moved on, slipping back over to the door so she could get off the train at Arlington, determined to walk the last few blocks to the theater instead of staying on the train until Boylston.  
  
She hopped off the car...and came face to face with the same creepy old man.  
  
“Miss?” he said.   
  
She turned, hunched over, and started walking, quickly, away from him.  
  
“Miss! Miss! Please!”  
  
It was all she could do not to break into a jog, but the man following her seemed sprightly for his age, and was gaining on her, fast.  
  
She nearly cried out when she felt a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“Ah!” she yelped, and turned. All she could think was that she wished she had her wand-- of course the time her parents forbid her to take it would be the time that some weird old man tries to drag her off into the park and chop her up with an axe, or something equally unpleasant. But nooo, she had to hear a lecture about how English wizards weren’t even allowed to practice basic spells at twelve years old without supervision. At least those crazy wizards who insisted the Second Amendment applied to wands were good for something, she thought, even as her stomach sank at the thought that she was about to be tied to the train tracks.  
  
“Ananda Thomas?” the man asked. “That is your name?” He had a British accent, like her parents.  
  
“Dude,” she said. “I don’t how you know my name, but I don’t talk to strangers. Leave me al--”  
  
“Silencio,” the man murmured, though he didn’t take out a wand. Ananda worked her mouth, but no sound came out. More frantic now, she tried to tug away from him.  
  
“I’m not a stranger,” he said. “I’m your grandfather.”   
  
Ananda felt a lump in her throat, although gradually the spell lifted. “I...you...I have two grandfathers. Archie Thomas and Krishnan Patil. I know them both. They live in England.” She looked around, frantically, for someone to step in, but the platform was deserted. She took a step back, away from him.  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he said. “Apparently, you have three. I need--”   
  
He reached to take something from his pocket.  
  
She turned and ran.  
  
“Wait!” he cried, running after her. “Ananda! Please!”   
  
She bolted through the turnstile, sending it spinning furiously in her wake. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Halfway up the steps, the ka-chunking stopped suddenly.  
  
She turned to look back. He had stopped following, one hand gripping the bar of the turnstile. She wondered why he wasn’t following, for the briefest moment, before realizing that she should probably be leaving and not wondering about things. She put her head down and kept running.   
  
“Please!” he called again. “Come back!”   
  
Outside the station, Ananda panted for a moment before heading toward the swan boats-- it would be easier to get lost in the park. She walked in the windiest path she could, panting as she sat down on a bench.  
  
And cursed her parents again for not letting her have a cell phone. The least she could do was call Cami and tell her they were going to see the new Ben Stiller movie and not that thing with the serial killer.   
  



End file.
